about last weekend

I wake up to a request for water paints before 7am and I say yes because I can, because suddenly - most days - we're in a hurry to get out the door. I listen to Hank talk about mixing colors to make shades like magenta and vermillion before pouring bowls of cereal. 

While Tucker attends an outdoor youth group the little boys explore a new-to-us playground on our way to pick up pizza for a riverfront picnic. The fountains are on and Hank cools off in the water while his brothers hammock nearby. The boys watch kayakers and wander the bank where they come across things like giant chunks of coal that may've fallen from the train bridge plus small, mysterious spheres they later discover are magnetic. I sit in the sun nearby, vacillating between the pages of a book and their earnest exploration.

Home again, the cats are corralled for quick snuggles before an avid acorn collection is underway. Bare feet and entire bodies roll around in a giant tub of nuts and the boys determine the sensation is worth a fee. Tolliver makes signs and sets up shop for spa treatments and I pretend to pay only to find there is something surprisingly soothing about the texture and weight of a gazillion acorns on my feet.

Three rounds of piano practice and landform project homework, feeding small flakes of cooked pasta to the "twenty four hour" fish that's still here from last week's school carnival,  charging chromebooks and laundering masks, more water colors and spoons of peanut butter and another chapter of James and the Giant Peach plus a million other minor things before another busy week begins.